"For the love of God, go on!" he said hoarsely. "Yes, 'for the love of God.' I have no money, I am poor, but the Company will always honour my orders, for I pay sometimes, by the help of Christ. Bien, I added some things to the list: a saddle, a rifle, and some flannel. But no, he would not. Once more I put many things down. It was a big bill— it would keep me poor for five years.—To save your wife, John Bagot, you who drove her from your door, blaspheming, and railing at such as I. . . . I offered the things, and told him that was all that I could give. After a little he shook his head, and said that he must have the woman for his wife. I did not know what to add. I said—'She is white, and the white people will never rest till they have killed you all, if you do this thing. The Company will track you down.' Then he said, 'The whites must catch me and fight me before they kill me.' . . . What was there to do?"
Bagot came near to the priest, bending over him savagely.
"You let her stay with them—you with hands like a man!"
"Hush!" was the calm, reproving answer. "I was one man, they were twenty."
"Where was your God to help you, then?"
"Her God and mine was with me."
Bagot's eyes blazed. "Why didn't you offer rum—rum? They'd have done it for that—one—five—ten kegs of rum!"
He swayed to and fro in his excitement, yet their voices hardly rose above a hoarse whisper all the time. "You forget," answered the priest, "that it is against the law, and that as a priest of my order, I am vowed to give no rum to an Indian."
"A vow? A vow? Name of God! what is a vow beside a woman—my wife?"
His misery and his rage were pitiful to see.